Scare Tactics (16 page)

They lay there for a few minutes while cars drove by in the rain, their tires sizzling on the blacktop. Then Beau lifted his head again.

The cortege was coming toward them, headlights aglow.

Can’t be seen, Beau. He’ll know you.

Beau worked his way back down the embankment and lay there as the four mortuary limos passed, traveling about thirty-five miles an hour.

Now, Beau, follow them.

But Hero wasn’t sure Beau had it in him anymore. His progress was slow getting up to the road, and there he was so hobbled he could no longer run. The limousines were disappearing around a bend in the road.

Keep going, Beau. Don’t quit now.

The old shepherd’s heart was beating wildly. A car slowed, a woman rolled down her window partway. “Poor doggy.” But the car drove on and a van, coming up fast, threw a wave of water over them. Beau shook himself; then, as if the dousing had done him good, he hobbled his way into a steady trot.

There it is!

A wrought-iron gate with an arched sign over the turn-in: Mt. Pisgah Cemetery. But there were no burial plots in sight. The road wound uphill through woods.

Can’t be far. Beau, Beau, we have to get there before
—

Beau growled resentfully, but he kept moving.

It seemed to take them a very long time to reach the top of the hill and Hero had his first glimpse of the cemetery, the hearse and limousines, the small group of mourners seated beside Taryn Melwood’s coffin under a canopy. There was a minister in a gray suit and clerical collar. His voice came clearly to Hero through the sound of rain falling in the surrounding woods.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Beau paused again, panting, his head down. It seemed to Hero that he had driven the dog mercilessly for the last half hour, and that Beauregard was about to collapse. He saw the leonine head of Sheriff John Stone in the front row of mourners and young Edie beside him, her head bowed.

Now that he and Beau had reached the graveyard, Hero had no idea of what to do next.

Don’t let them put me in the ground yet.

“Taryn?”

Come on, Hero. The best part of the service is about to begin.

Beau took a shuddering step toward the gravesite, and fell over.

Get up, Beau!
Hero begged him.

I’ll help.
And something passed through the dog’s exhausted body, a wave of energy like a caressing hand. Beau perked up; he lurched to his feet and lumbered toward the gravesite, seeming to gain strength as he went. They hadn’t noticed him yet; all heads were bowed as the minister prayed.

Then one of the men from Daimler Brothers, inattentive and bored with funerals, looked around at the charging shepherd.

“Holy shit,” he said under his breath, and backed up against a co-worker as Beau gathered himself at the perimeter of the canopy and leaped atop the flower-covered casket, sprawled there, almost sliding off into the laps of the mourners.

The hand of pure energy that had reached out to him from the gravesite and coaxed him to his feet now kept him from falling off the casket as mourners scrambled from the front row of folding chairs.

Beau looked into the eyes of Sheriff John Stone, and was not chastened. Beside Stone, Edie was transfixed, gloved hands over her mouth.

“Get that dog out of here!”

Beau turned his head. Through a break in the hillside trees the screen of the *Star-Light* Drive-In theatre faced them, shabby but clearly visible despite the rain.

Hero focused on the screen, trying not to let his attention be diverted although quite a lot was going on. Hands reached out for Beau, who snapped and snarled, and Sheriff John Stone was backing Edie away from the casket while he reached for the off-duty revolver on his hip. But he had to reach awkwardly with his left hand; his right arm was around Edie. While he was trying to draw his revolver and shoot the animal he had only belatedly recognized as Beau, Gaynell Bazemore glanced at the drive-in screen.

“Nealy, look! That’s Taryn!”

Taryn, stripped naked, running for her life—no mistaking her, the picture on the screen was bright enough to be Been through the rain, and clearly focused, even though what was happening seemed to be happening at night.

(She had one leg up and was pulling herself over when something like a piece of pipe or a club struck her hard in the ribs)

This they saw in closeup, and Taryn’s contorted face as she reacted ...

(She didn’t fall, but the pain was so bad she couldn’t summon the strength to push herself the rest of the way over. Then he was there: a hand clamped on her dangling foot and he jerked her down from the)

“Uncle John!” Edie gasped, her voice no more than a shocked whisper. “Is that you?”

They were all watching the drive-in screen, Stone included. He had momentarily forgotten the revolver in his hand. His lips were taut in a grimace of disbelief. Beau lay shivering on the casket while Hero, as fascinated and horrified as anyone there, concentrated on projecting what Taryn had wanted them all to see of her last living moments.

(She got up so slowly that at times she appeared static, posing grievously. Both hands were cupped to her forehead, filling up with blood as she tried to stanch the heavy flow from the cut that had half-scalped her)

“Oh my God, I’m dreaming this!” Gaynell Bazemore shrieked, clutching at her husband.

(She fell twice, muddying herself in red dirt, her own blood)

Stone turned slowly away from the spectacle on the *Star-Light’s* screen, chaos in his face, his swollen right eye bulging from his head. He lifted his revolver and aimed it at Beauregard, at the casket he had closed himself with Taryn inside.

(She was oblivious to him shuffling up behind her until the downward chop of his knife to the nape of her neck stopped the show)

Edie screamed hysterically.

Stone turned and stared at her and then at the drive-in screen as several mourners gasped. He saw himself driving the eight-inch blade of the hunting knife again and again, furiously, into Taryn’s body, saw his face in closeup so clearly little splatters of her blood were visible on it.

Stone shook.

The minister was beside him, one hand on his wrist, holding the revolver down.

The show at the *Star-Light* Drive-In started all over again.

Stone jerked away from the minister, the gun firing wildly, scattering the mourners who were still on their feet.

Beau lifted his head and howled to the heavens.

Stone went down on his knees beside Edie, laughing and crying, embracing her. When she shrieked and tried to get away from him, he pulled the trigger of the revolver snugged up against his chest and with one shot blew his heart to bits.

Beau R.I.P.

H
is parents flew over from England the day they let Hero out of jail, and picked him up at the Sheriff’s station in Carverstown.

His father owned a box factory and rental property in Sheffield; his mother decorated store windows. They were handsome, prosperous people who had never understood their son very well, but they loved him ungrudgingly nonetheless.

“I should think,” his father said, “you might be ready for a lengthy visit home after this unpleasantness. Haven’t seen much of you, these past few years.”

“All right,” Hero said, with uncharacteristic diffidence.

“Shouldn’t we visit a doctor before we leave?” his mother suggested. “Really, Hero, you look dreadful.”

“Feeling pretty well, though,” Hero said. “I admit I could use a rest ... oh, dad. Before we head for the airport, I must make some stops.”

“What for?”

Hero pulled a piece of paper from his pocket which Bob D. Grange, the acting sheriff of Carver County, had given him.

“We’re going first to 1263 Audubon Street.” He read off the directions, and after three wrong turns they found themselves at the veterinarian’s where Hero had been told he could pick up Beauregard’s remains.

“What in the world—?”

“Mother, please. I made some promises.”

The Flynns looked at each other as Hero got out of the car. Derek Flynn shrugged.

“I’ll need a hand, dad. He weighed upward of eight stone. Lucky you rented a Cadillac.”

“We put him to sleep last night,” the vet said. She was a pleasant woman in her mid-forties. “There was just too much wrong with him, and he was in constant pain.”

“I know,” Hero said.

With his father he carried the box out to the car. The trunk of the Caddy was smaller than he’d anticipated, but they were able to wedge the box inside and tie the lid down.

“Where now?” his father asked him. “This won’t take long, will it? We’ve a plane to catch at six-thirty.”

“Right. I need a shovel. Noticed a hardware store just up the street.”

They were at Shoulderblade State Park shortly after two. The trip uphill with Beauregard was hard on Hero’s father, who had let himself go sadly to pot since Hero had last seen him; but the view from the site Hero chose was, to his mind, well worth their effort.

“I’m sure it can’t make any difference to the dog,” his father grumbled. But he pitched in willingly to help with the digging.

“Why is this so important to you, dear?” his mother asked.

Hero put down the shovel, and stretched. He had begun to love this place, and was sad to leave. But in the digging of this grave he was laying more than Beauregard to rest. The weight of 35 centuries was off him at last, no more than dust. He could think, now, about what he must do with the rest of his life. Until he and Taryn met again.

He smiled at his mother. “I’d like to be able to explain that to you,” he said. “But for now ... I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

You Scream. 

We All Scream

for Ice Cream.

T
oot Embry was already a couple of sheets to the wind when he leaned across the table and said with a smile that was both frightened and insinuating, “You might not have noticed, Layne, but it all started after you came back to town.”

Layne Bannixter swallowed the last of his Michelob and tried not to be annoyed.

“I guess I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Toot held up an unsteady right hand and counted on his fingers.

“Skip Stockwell. Driving back from a three-day business trip to Memphis. The Highway Patrol found his car pulled off the Interstate just the other side of the Tennessee River. The car was okay, plenty of gas, but Skip was nowhere to be found. Ain’t been heard from to this day. Herb McKenzie, he left a patient in the chair and went into his office for a few minutes and flat-out disappeared. Nothing left of Herb but his white coat and crepe-soled shoes on the floor.”

“Just a minute, Toot—”

“Number three. Ollie Chambliss. Shacking up with one of his grad students at UT. They were
both
missing for three weeks. Then some hikers found her up around Gatlinburg, wandering in the woods. Incoherent. Amnesiac. Whatever happened to Ollie, she can’t or won’t talk about it.”

“You think this is some kind of pattern, for God’s sake? Toot, we’ve all reached that certain age. Midlife crisis, isn’t that what the psychologists call it? Skip and Herb and Ollie, for whatever reasons, just got fed up with their lives and wanted out. I admit it’s unusual, three of the old bunch in eight months, but nothing to get paranoid about.”

Toot reached for his Seven and Seven and miscalculated, or his hand jumped nervously, Layne couldn’t tell which; the glass hit the floor of Papa John’s Cozy Grill and shattered. Toot looked at the pieces, his mouth twitching a little.

“Losing my coordination,” he muttered. “Hell, when I was forty, I could still jack off and play tennis at the same time.” His eyes met Layne’s. They were a soused red, and his face was blotchy, broken veins in the cheeks. He had trouble breathing. “Not so long ago.”

Papa John came over. He was from the neighborhood where they’d all grown up. The West End Bunch. John Tredway was the best athlete, the first to marry, the quickest to age. As “Papa John” he now weighed close to three hundred pounds. Half of his beard was white.

“Got the jim-jams tonight?” he said to Embry, and put a fresh Seven and Seven on the table in front of him. One of John’s eight kids, Layne couldn’t remember which one, brought a dustpan to clean up the broken glass.

“Damn right.” Toot reached for his highball, grasped it with both hands, drank nearly half in a couple of swallows. He took a deep and shuddering breath. “The way I figure, there’s no coincidence. Somebody’s after us, all of us.” He looked from Papa John to Layne, his face swelling like a blowfish at their skeptical smiles. “Three gone. Five left, including Virg Constable.”

Papa John said, with a shrug and a glance at Layne to let him know he wasn’t being all that serious, “Maybe it’s Virgil putting the snatch on the guys. He usually had a grudge against one or the other of us.”